Baron/Biographer

Not many historical biographers attract hordes of reporters and photographers to their book signings, but, then, not many historical biographers are also press barons who have just admitted receiving seven million dollars from their company without the approval of the board of directors. “This is a terribly unfortunate thing,” Conrad Black, a.k.a. Lord Black of Crossharbour, was saying the other night to a throng of reporters in the faculty dining room at Hunter College who had more or less hijacked what was supposed to be a panel discussion about his new book, “Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom.”

A few days earlier, Black had resigned as chief executive of the financially troubled Hollinger International, which publishes the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, and the London Daily Telegraph, among other papers. He was understandably keen to talk about his book, which took him four years to write, but the journalists were more interested in discovering how he would get along without his corporate jet, which he has had to give up. (According to one article, it had recently been redecorated, on his wife’s orders, at a cost of three million dollars.)

“When was the last time you flew commercial?” a reporter from the New York Post demanded.

“Two weeks ago; it’s not such a rarity,” Black replied.

“First class?”

“On that occasion, yes.”

“What about the book tour?”

“If I don’t fly commercial, I will pay for it out of my own pocket.”

Black, who in 2001 gave up his Canadian citizenship to become a British life peer, is an imposing man: he is tall, broad, and possessed of a fierce temper. In the past, he has often lashed out at reporters who don’t work for him—and, at times, at some who do—but on this occasion he seemed unusually subdued. After answering a number of questions, he said, almost plaintively, “I ask you to contemplate the possibility that those who benefit from the presumption of innocence may, in fact, be innocent.”

With that, he mounted the stage and turned his attention to the liberal icon he considers to be the greatest man of the twentieth century—a surprising verdict from such a staunch conservative, whose newspapers reflect his views. One of the panelists, Roger Hertog, who is the chairman of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, asked Black why he had written such an “adoring” biography. “Not adoring,” Black said. “Admiring.” He went on, “My feeling is that we have to emancipate Roosevelt from the left, who have grappled him so close to their bosom that they won’t let anybody else near him. The fact is he belongs to the country, and he was, essentially, a centrist. He was not a bleeding heart.”

Whatever Black’s merits as a custodian of stockholders’ funds, he certainly gives his readers value for money. His biography, at almost thirteen hundred pages and more than four pounds, covers everything from the thirty-second President’s stamp collection (extensive) to his marital relationship (distant). While some of Black’s fellow-conservatives dislike the book, the Times and others have praised it. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., the author of “The Age of Roosevelt,” a three-volume work, said, by telephone from Rome, that he hadn’t finished it yet. “I have difficulty lifting it,” he said.

Black’s prolixity is not confined to the page. When a member of the audience asked him about Roosevelt’s refusal to allow the St. Louis, a ship packed with German Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, to dock in the United States, his answer took more than twenty minutes. When he was asked about Roosevelt’s relationship with Churchill, he went on for almost as long, drawing blank stares from the media section.

After he finally finished talking and sat down to sign books, the reporters had another crack at him. This time, however, he gave as good as he got, pointing out that, despite resigning as Hollinger’s chief executive, he was still the company’s chairman, as well as its controlling stockholder. “The New York Times man—is he here?” he demanded. “Your paper represented this as a case of embezzlement, although it didn’t use that word.” In actuality, Black said, it was merely a case of “insufficient documentation.” He insisted,“I, myself, had nothing to do with it.”

A British journalist asked Black about the prospect of being forced to sell the Daily Telegraph, the historic newspaper that turned him into a well-known figure and eased his path into the House of Lords. “Very distressing, very distressing,” he replied, and his mood seemed to darken again. “I am being pilloried as a scoundrel,” he huffed. “And I am not a scoundrel.”